Food Safety and Preservation Techniques

This assignment provides an overview of food safety control systems, including guidelines and legislation. It discusses various types of contamination and spoilage that can occur if food is not preserved properly, highlighting potential hazards to consumers. The document also touches on biocontrol methods, such as bacteriophages and endolysins, essential oil nanoemulsions, and pre-and postharvest preventive measures for fresh leafy vegetables. Additionally, it explores pest management at food processing facilities and reviews current plant biostimulant legislations in European member states.

FOOD SAFETY
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Controls required to prevent physical and chemical contamination of food........................3
1.2 Compare characteristics of food poisoning and food borne infections.................................4
1.3 Ways food-borne illness can be controlled...........................................................................5
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
2.1 Food-spoilage agents categories that affect food..................................................................6
2.2 Methods of food preservation...............................................................................................6
2.3 Effectiveness of Food preservation methods........................................................................7
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Key steps in a temperature control system............................................................................8
3.2 Methods for the safe storage of food.....................................................................................8
3.3 Importance of personal hygiene in the control of food contamination.................................9
3.4 Cleaning and disinfection as a process supporting safe food production.............................9
3.5 Problems associated with pest control in food premises.....................................................10
3.6 Need for hygienic design and construction of food premises.............................................10
3.7 Importance of training as a quality assurance mechanism..................................................10
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................11
4.1 Food hazard risk assessment...............................................................................................11
4.2 Food safety control system..................................................................................................11
4.3 Food safety guide for legislation compliance.....................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Food safety management helps in handling, storing, cooking and serving food properly so
that it doesn't get spoiled or contaminated. It is one of the most essential thing in hotels to be
considered to maintain safety and hygiene inside the hotels which can further lead in
improvement of public health as there are many diseases that occur form eating contaminated or
spoiled food. There are various food safety measures, methods, regulations, legislations etc. that
are important for every hotel or restaurant to follow for safety of food. This assignment will lay
emphasis on various processes that can prevent food spoilage and preserve quality of food,
different important effective preventive systems that can control food contaminations, control
and construction of food management system and lastly a food safety guide for legislation
compliance.
LO 1
1.1 Controls required to prevent physical and chemical contamination of food
Enclosed in presentation
1.2 Compare characteristics of food poisoning and food borne infections
Enclosed in presentation
1.3 Ways food-borne illness can be controlled
Enclosed in presentation
LO 2
2.1 Food-spoilage agents categories that affect food
Food Spoilage means disagreeable change in normal state of food that can be detected by
taste, smell, sight or touch. These changes might occur in a food because of excess contact with
air or oxygen, light, moisture, temperature or due to growth of microbial growth.
Causes or agents of food spoilage:
 Bacteria: Fruits and vegetables, convert milk into curd (Benedict, Chiller and Mody,
2016).
 Protozoa: cooked spoiled food
 Fungi: develop in warm places and grow on dead or rotting matter such as fruits.
 Temperature: major factor of spoilage of food.
Types of food-spoilage Food it affects

Microbial spoilage Milk, bread, rotting of fruits and vegetables
Physical Spoilage Apple
Chemical Spoilage- Enzymic spoilage Rotten tomato
Chemical Spoilage- Enzymic browning Unwashed fruits and vegitables
2.2 Methods of food preservation
There are various methods through which food can be preserved but few of the most
important food preservation methods are:
 Drying: One of the most common method to preserve food in which water activity is
reduced which helps in preventing growth of bacteria. Can be done by dry freezing, shelf
drying, spray drying (Tewari and Abdullah, 2015).
 Freezing: Keeping all the food in cold storage.
 Smoking: it is a method in which food is exposed to the smoke from burning woods.
Sometimes it is used to add flavours in the food as well.
 Vacuum packing: by making bottles or bags of food airtight.
 Curing and pickling: Curing removes moisture from food such as meat. Pickling means
preserving food with either salt solution or vinegar solution.
 Canning and bottling: Cooked food is sealed in cans or bottles (Nakao and et.al, 2018).
 Potting: method in which meat is preserved by placing it in a pot and sealing it with a
layer of fat.
 Lye: Sodium hydroxide addition that turns food alkaline
 Sugar: used in syrup form to preserve fruits.
2.3 Effectiveness of Food preservation methods
Food prevention is a process of prevention of spoilage or decay of food by storing it in a suitable
environment or condition, so that it can be used further in future safely. Food prevention
methods ensures that edibility, quality and nutritive value of food is maintained by preventing
growth of bacteria, fungi etc.
Food prevention method Its effectiveness
 Refrigeration  Lower temperature retard the growth rate of

 Freezing
 Drying, curing
 Vacuum and oxygen free packing
 Carbon dioxide enrich packing
 Addition of weak acid
 Sugar preservation
bacteria, fungi or microorganisms.
 It reduced water activity and prevent growth
of microbial.
 Reduces water activity that delay microbial
growth.
 Lowers oxygen rate which delays the growth
of bacteria.
 It works as a hindrance for microorganisms
and prevent food.
 Reduces intracellular pH of microorganisms.
 Cooking in high sucrose concentration
creating too high osmotic pressure for most
microbial survival.
LO 3
3.1 Key steps in a temperature control system
Temperature control system is a set process which establishes and maintains a specific food
product as well as maintains the desired quality of food. It is important to consider following
steps in temperature control system in order to maintain the quality of the food.
 Storage: Here cold storage or freezers are used to hold and store food which is capable of
delaying growth of microorganisms. Here temperature of cold storage or refrigerators are
controlled, measured and recorded according to the food. In refrigerators and cold storage
automatic temperature control systems are fit which helps in controlling the temperature
so that food can be kept safe (Bai and et.al, 2016).
 Cooking: Cooking temperatures of food should also be controlled in order to keep food
safe i.e. if the food is cooked then it should be cooked above 145 F so that the food isn't
kept or cooked in danger zone i.e. 45 to 140 F. This cooking temperature should be
controlled. Nowadays Oven or microwaves are present which has an inbuilt temperature
control system which keeps the food safe.
 Reheating: Reheating food temperature should also be controlled and should be above
165 F so that food is not affected.

 Service: Various types of food need different storage in different temperatures. Storage
areas of different food should have a temperature control system in order to stop spoilage
of food.
 Preparation: preparation of food should also be done through thermal processing where
temperature of the food is maintained for a required time so that food doesn't get spoiled
(Donsi and Ferrari, 2016).
3.2 Methods for the safe storage of food
There are various food storage methods that are normally used for storing food safely in
order to reduce the threat of food poisoning, such as:
 Freezers and thawing food: Freezer temperature should be maintained at 0 F. Food should
never be thawed at room temperature as it increases the risk of bacterial and fungal
growth. Food that is once thawed should never be freezed but should be used. Thawing
methods for frozen food are: microwave oven, during cooking, in cold water, in the
refrigerators (Gil and et.al, 2015).
 Storing oils and fats: oils and fats should be stored at dark place, stored in oxygen free
area, containers that reduces lights.
 Dry storage foods: vegetables should be stored safely under dry conditions. Various
vegetables have different storage requirements out of which few of them are: cool and
dry storage, cool and moist storage, warm and dry storage.
 Food rotation:it is one of the important method to preserve freshness. When food is
rotated, the food that has been stored the longest is used first and the new food is added to
the storage area.
3.3 Importance of personal hygiene in the control of food contamination
Personal hygiene is important in preventing contamination of food as it can cause food
poisoning to an individual. If someone is sick then they should avoid going to work as they can
easily contaminate others food as it is already known that mostly food gets contaminated by
cross contamination. Food handlers should be trained properly so that they handle food properly
in order to prevent it from contamination. Bad hygiene is one of the most common source of
microorganisms to develop and grow in food. Untidy hairs, or cloths can contaminate food easily
which can lead someone to get sick. It can easily be avoided by wearing clean cloths, tying hairs

properly while cooking food or by washing hands properly (Moreb, Priyadarshini and Jaiswal,
2017).
3.4 Cleaning and disinfection as a process supporting safe food production
Cleaning and disinfection are two discrete processes that support safe production of food.
Cleaning is a process in which food surface is cleaned completely by removing dirt, soil, residual
from food surface. It is important to be done so that all the bacteria's on the surface of the food
are removed, so that subsequent disinfection can be done effectively. Without proper cleaning
disinfection will be compromised (Marriott, Schilling and Gravani, 2018).
Disinfections a process in which microorganisms are killed in order to remove their number
which are neither harmful to health nor to the quality of the food. Validated disinfectants can be
used to remove microorganisms from the surface.
3.5 Problems associated with pest control in food premises
There are various problems that are associated with pest control such as: Lack of
awareness of the biggest problem associated with pest control as many times in organization it
happens that after 10 days of doing the pest control pests such as rats etc. are seen in the kitchen
or storage areas. Many times due to lack of awareness people start cooking food immediately just
after the pest control. Lack of education and training is also one of the most common problem
associated with pest control as most of the people do not know the accurate way and method of
conducting pest control and rules related to it. Due to this many problems related to supervision
occurs i.e. people do not have any idea about the harmful chemicals used in pest control and they
start preparing food in the presence of those chemicals as well as they supervise their juniors do
so which causes problems in food premises (Karg and Wallau, 2018).
3.6 Need for hygienic design and construction of food premises
Increasing demand of safe and fresh food has lead to increase in hygienic design and
construction of food premises as one of the most important part in preparation of hygienic food is
safe and healthy environment. Food premises should be constructed in such a way where
cleaning can be done easily, is pest free etc. First thing which is required is designing and
controlling is a fencing near food premises so that not animals can cross and contaminate the
food premise. It should be designed and constructed in such a way that it is pest free. A
cornerstone zones should be designed so that food contamination can be preserved. Designing of

food premises should be in such a way that it is hazard free and food processing equipments are
not contaminated frequently (Djekic and et.al, 2018).
3.7 Importance of training as a quality assurance mechanism
Quality assurance mechanism is a way of increasing cleanliness, hygiene at food
premises so that quality of food can be maintained. There are various mechanisms, methods
through which hygiene in food premises can be maintained by controlling the quality of the food.
Training is also one of the most important part of quality assurance mechanism. As there is a
need of monitoring the kitchen premises regularly such that quality of the food is being
maintained or not. All the safety methods is being used or not and if due to lack of training and
education quality is being compromised then sessions or seminars or training should be
organized for all the staff members or individuals involved in the kitchen premises. These
training will help in boosting the quality assurance mechanism in the kitchen or food premises.
LO 4
4.1 Food hazard risk assessment
There are three common types of hazards associated with food that can cause injury or
illness to the people.
 Biological hazard: Food can contain biological hazards. It might occur from raw
materials or by processing of food in a wrong way in order to make a final product. It can
occur due to growth of microorganisms due to presence of air, dirt, salt water etc. It can
be controlled by properly washing vegetables, properly heating the food at desired, by
maintaining personal hygiene (Guo and et.al, 2017).
 Chemical hazard: it can happen at any stage of food processing or production due to
some chemicals used in preserving food from pest etc. It can be due to natural chemicals,
intentional chemicals or addition of accidental chemicals. It can be controlled by
preparing food away from chemical area, washing food properly and using it with
complete safety.
 Physical hazard: it can occur due to addition of harmful matter inside the food. These
substances can be glass, metal etc. it can be controlled by always covering food,
preparing it at a safe place etc.

4.2 Food safety control system
Effective food safety control system is important to be established in an organization to
protect consumers health. For this first of all a legal standard, food safety guidelines, legislation
should be created and followed within food premises so that proper hygiene and safety level is
maintained. Then after building proper regulations and regulations a proper food control
management system should be built to maintain the quality of food inside premises (Toyokawa
and et.al, 2018). After this regular inspection of all the services HACCP plan should be done
with continuous food monitoring so that any kind of hazard can be reduced as well as identified.
4.3 Food safety guide for legislation compliance
One of the most important thing in food safety management is to create a guide for
legislation compliance in order to increase hygiene inside the hotel. It is important to adhere all
the safety instructions framed in the food and safety regulations guide. These regulations will
help to implement and maintain hygiene and safety in an efficient manner inside the hotel.
Regulations or legislations such as Food hygiene regulations 2006 helps in measuring all the
duties in order to improve food safety and public health, Food safety act 1990 helps in stoping
contamination through various preventive measures and methods which helps in maintaining
hygiene and safety aspects. Such legislations will help in improving food quality and safety
which further leads in improvement of public health (La Torre, Battaglia and Caradonia, 2016).
Additionally, these regulations and legislations helps in generation of awareness within the hotel
staff, employees as well as in public, it also reduces contamination of food and illness caused by
degraded quality of food. This guide will help in implementation of strict regulation which will
help in flourishing food laws.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been concluded that there are various types of
contamination of spoilage of food that can occur if food isn't preserved. Due to this various kind
of hazard can occur which can either injure or cause illness to the consumers. So for this a proper
food safety control system should be build with proper guide and legislation.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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